


A kiss...

by Wrathofscribbles



Series: Kisses... [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 19:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16143473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: ... where it hurts.





	A kiss...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glaivenoct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaivenoct/gifts).



> **Big bold reminder that Final Fantasy XV and all of its content is property of Square Enix.** I just like to play in the sandpit they've created for the fans.
> 
> If this looks familiar to you, that's because it is. This used to be part of a multi-chapter pain-in-my ass, but I've decided to take that down and make every chapter a standalone oneshot. Apologies for any confusion caused.
> 
> Prompts are from [this list](https://wrathofscribbles.tumblr.com/post/177169224758/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-i-will-write-a).

He wakes to a slumbering town and the whir of an overhead fan, Selena’s screams ringing in his skull and Crowe’s dead hand a phantom weight held in his.  It’s a warm night, no need for shirts in Lestallum, and his skin is lined with sweat, but he’s _cold_ , as if Shiva herself has laid hands on his chest and sent a blizzard through his veins.

_The price is a life_ , the Kings had said, a debt he’d been willing to pay, a debt that’d burned his flesh and marked his bones and ravaged his body and _yet_.  Here he is alive and whole, and there his friends and family are, dead and gone and six feet under or ash to the wind.

_“You were lucky, son, that fall could have killed you,”_ his father says when he fishes Nyx out of the well, hours after falling in.  Had he tumbled over the crumbling bricks the week prior, before Ramuh had brought an end to the drought, he’d have plummeted to the very bottom and cracked his skull open like an egg for their morning omelettes.

_“Luck,”_  his Ma says when he and Libertus take the garden gate off its hinges in their flight from the sharp-toothed, red-eyed daemons chasing after them, alive and panting and _terrified out of their minds_ even as the warding runes lit up like the noonday sun and sent the horrors of the night scuttling back to their shadows, “ _and an Astral’s good fortune.”_

_“You’re lucky I don’t break your nose, asshole,”_  Crowe says when she hops away from him, shaking the pain from her knuckles while he claps a hand over his nose in a futile effort to stem the bleeding, reeling away from her and waving his other hand as though _that_ can possibly ward off an insulted fifteen year old’s ire, casting a glare at Libertus when the fucker _laughs at him_.

_“Lucky the King likes stray mongrels, huh?”_ Tredd says over the folds of his new uniform, but there’s anger there, low and slow-burning and _dark_  in the glower he casts at the badge they’ve all to wear with honour, the token they’ll be bringing home if he falls in battle and there’s no body left to bury.  He should respond to that, he knows, but he’s still in shock from the King’s gentle words and easy acceptance of _refugees_ into his ranks, into his _personal guard_.  There’s got to be a catch somewhere, he thinks, and immediately wants to kick himself or have Crowe clip him over the head like his Ma would have, with a stern lecture about biting the hand feeding him.

_“Lady Luck ain’t done with you yet, Nyx,”_  Pelna says, voice fading in and out like a badly tuned radio, arm lit up like a firework display as he calls on magic to counteract the lightning still lancing over his chest and sending the rest of his body into convulsions.  He learns, later, under the watchful eye of a cute nurse and the King’s own physician, that he’d _grappled_ with the coeurl, sticking his hands in its jaws and hauling it away from Crowe with every ounce of strength he had, dumping the fucker in the middle of an _inferno_  when it caught him with its claws and latched both whiskers over his shoulders and _literally shocked him half to death._

_“Looks like your luck’s finally run out, Glaive,”_  Luche says, looming over him, grimace on his face that Nyx thinks is an attempt at a grin, and all he can do is spit the blood from his mouth and tell the traitorous bastard to go fuck himself, meet his glare as the gun lifts and his aim changes.  If it goes off there’s a bullet headed straight - but it never does, a defiant scream drawing Luche’s attention and a heartbeat later the Oracle’s Trident is lodged in his chest, her magic propelling him bodily backwards, and all Nyx can think is she has one fucking _spectacular_ throwing arm.

_“You’re lucky to be alive,”_  Ignis says, and Nyx has never seen him so pale and stressed and tired before.  He’s about to ask what’s wrong, the question on the very _tip_  of his tongue, when the memories come crashing through the fog of intensive healing.  The invasion, the Wall falling with King Regis dead at Glauca’s - _Drautos!_ \- feet, the daemons, the statues dotted around Insomnia woken from centuries of slumber by the worst magic Nyx has ever held at his fingertips, destructive and dark and _hungry,_  devouring caster, city, and champions alike.

All his life he’s been told _luck_ has kept him on his feet, has given him the strength to take one more step, one more swing, has forced him on and on and _on_  when anyone else would have crumbled to dust and decay.  All his life _luck_  has been an hourglass perched over his shoulder, slowly ticking away the seconds until he’s struck down, one insignificant speck of sand at a time.  All his life he’s thought it’s been _luck,_ just like they all said, but he knows otherwise now.

It’s not luck at all.  It’s a _curse_.  He’s doomed to live when they all die, to survive when they all perish.  He’ll be the last man standing, when he’d much rather be a casualty of war, a barrier between someone he loves and death seeking the next name on its list.

“Come back to bed,” Noctis says beside him, voice a sleep-slurred murmur, hand a gentle warmth around his wrist, and Nyx is powerless to refuse.  He lies down on his side to face Noctis, can’t see him well in the dark, and manages the briefest smile when chapped lips make contact with his forehead and an arm slings low over his hip.  They won’t stay like this all night but for now... it’s just right.

* * *

He doesn’t feel the second kiss to his forehead when he eventually falls into slumber’s hold again, nor does he stir when a hand finds home on his chest.  He doesn’t see eyes that open and glow a vivid red and he doesn’t hear the grief and guilt and hopelessness in Noctis’s next whisper.

_“Help him sleep without dreams, Carbuncle, please.”_


End file.
